Updated feedback to the following sections: Modified link to Information for Partners; Unified CVP 8.0(1) Support for Virtualization on the ESXi/UCS Platform (Modified bullet that referred to 'Distributed'; Coresidency (Deleted references to realtime. JP's update; Modified last bullet regarding support on Blade.)

Information for Partners about Cisco Unified CVP on UCS Deployment Certification and Ordering

It is important that partners who are planning to sell UCS products on Unified Cisco Customer Voice Portal, read the Unified CCE DocWiki page.

This page contains essential information for partners about the following:

Partner Certification Requirements

UCS Server Ordering Information

Important Notes on Cisco UCS Service and Support

Unified CVP 8.0(1) Support for Virtualization on the ESXi/UCS Platform

Starting with Release 8.0(1), virtualization of the following deployments and Unified CVP components on Cisco Unified Communications Systems (UCS) B-Series hardware is supported:

Unified CVP Call Server

Unified CVP VXML Server

Unified CVP Reporting Server

Unified CVP Ops Console

The following deployments and Unified CVP components have not been qualified and are not supported in virtualization:

H323 Call flow Deployment

Distributed VXML Server and Call Server deployment where each server runs in a separate VM

UCS Network Configuration

1) TCP Setting modification on Reporting Server
It is highly recommended that customers modify the default "Number of Receive Buffers" setting on the Reporting server to maximize full reporting and call load on the virtualized platform. If this setting is not modified after installing the OS, messages will get backed up on the CallServer and Message Queues will fill up resulting in a sharp drop in cps rate.

Set the "Number of Receive buffers" on the Reporting Server TCP settings to 4096 (max).

Instructions:

On Reporting server, click on Control Panel->Network Connection.

Right click on Network Connection.

Click on advanced tab.

Under property tab, select "Number of Receive Buffers".

In the Value pulldown, enter 4096.

Restart the Reporting Server.

2) Use TCP protocol over UDP for SIP Comprehensive call flow as a SIP Best Practice Use TCP for SIP Comprehensive call flows. Using UDP may cause call setup failures or may result in abnormally long calls under heavy load. Typically TCP should be set on all call legs, but it is a requirement on the ingress leg. This can be set on the POTS dialpeer by setting the session transport to tcp.

3) Cisco VLAN trunking to VMWare
For information on best practices for Cisco VLAN trunking to VMware, refer to the VMware website .

Support for Unified Communications Manager Clustering Over the WAN with Unified CVP on UCS Hardware

You can deploy the Unified Communications Manager (Unified CM) Clustering Over the WAN deployment model with Unified CVP on UCS B-series hardware.

In addition, note the following expectation for UCS B-series hardware points of failure:

Multiple points of failure on the Unified CVP UCS B-series HA deployment can cause catastrophic failure, such as ICM software failovers and interruption of service. If multiple points of failure occur, replace the failed redundant components and links immediately.

B-Series Considerations

When deploying Clustering Over the WAN with B-Series hardware, use of the Cisco UCS M81KR Virtual Interface Card is mandatory.

New B-Series deployments using Clustering Over the WAN must use a Nexus 7000 Series / Nexus 5000 Series vPC infrastructure, or a Cisco Catalyst 6500 Series Virtual Switching Supervisor Engine 720-10G.

Notes for Deploying Unified CVP Applications on UCS B-Series Hardware with SAN

In Storage Area Network (SAN) architecture, storage consists of a series of arrays of Redundant Array of Independent Disks (RAIDs). A Logical Unit Number (LUN) that represents a device identifier can be created on a RAID array. A LUN can occupy all or part of a single RAID array, or span multiple RAID arrays.

In a virtualized environment, datastores are created on LUNs. Virtual Machines (VMs) are installed on the SAN datastore.

Keep the following considerations in mind when deploying Unified CVP applications on UCS B-series hardware with SAN:

Compliance Considerations

A SAN RAID group must be dedicated to Unified CVP database components; these SAN RAID groups must not be shared by other applications. The SAN disk array must be configured as RAID 10, for added performance and fault tolerance. SAN solutions are typically deployed in a shared environment where multiple applications are contending for storage access. If the SAN storage deployment is identified as affecting the functions of the contact center solution, the customer will be required to deploy a direct attached storage solution instead. Moreover, if in the process of troubleshooting, the SAN itself is identified as the problem, the customer must contact the system integrator or the SAN vendor for resolution.

For UCS B-series, Virtual Machines must be stored on and booted from the SAN.

Kernel Disk Command Latency – It should be very small (>>>DACHEW to provide specific number) in comparison to the Physical Device Command Latency, and it should be close to zero. A high Kernel Command Latency indicates there is a lot of queuing in the ESXi kernel.

The SAN design and configuration must meet the following Windows performance counters on Unified CVP VMs:

AverageDiskQueueLength must remain less than (1.5 ∗ (the total number of disks in the array)).

%Disktime must remain less than 60%.

Any given SAN array must be designed to have an IOPS capacity exceeding the sum of the IOPS required for all resident UC applications. Unified CVP applications should be designed for the 95th percentile IOPS values published in this wiki. Refer to the Performance Requirements section below for additional information. For other UC applications, please follow their respective IOPS requirements and guidelines.

Storage/Size Considerations

Unified CVP requires application storage to be on VMFS. Raw Device Mapping (RDM) is not supported.

The total size of all Virtual Machines on a disk (total size = VM disk + RAM copy) must not exceed 90% of the capacity of a datastore.

Input/Output Operations per Second (IOPS) Considerations

IOPS utilization should be monitored for each application to ensure that the aggregate IOPS is not exceeding the capacity of the array. Prolonged buffering of IOPS against an array may result in degraded system performance and delayed reporting data availability. Refer to the Performance Requirements section below for additional information.

Maintenance Considerations

To help keep your system running most efficiently, schedule automatic database purging and database backups to run when your system is least busy.

Support Considerations

The ESXi boot from SAN feature is not supported; it must be installed to internal storage.

Steps for Installing Unified CVP Components on Virtual Machines

Follow the steps and references below to install or migrate the Unified CVP components on Virtual Machines.

Create the Unified CVP Virtual Machines from the OVA template. OVA templates are available here

Install Windows OS and Websphere Application Server (if using VXML Server with WAS) on the created Virtual Machines. (Note: Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Standard Edition should be used for virtual machine guests. See related information in the links below.)

Unified CVP Component Capacities and VM Configuration Requirements

This table shows the supported Unified CVP components, their capacities, and the VM computing resource requirements. You must use the OVA virtual machine templates to create the Unified CVP component VMs.

Unified CVP Component Co-Residency

You can have one or more Unified CVP VMs co-resident on the same ESXi server. However, you must follow the rules described below:

You can have any number of Unified CVP virtual machines and combination of co-residency of Unified CVP virtual machines on an ESXi server as long as the sum of all the virtual machine CPU and memory resource allocation is not over committed on the available ESXi server computing resources.

You must not have CPU overcommitted on the ESXi server that is running Unified CVP application components . The total number of vCPUs among all the virtual machines on an ESXi host must not greater than the total number of CPUs available on the ESXi server. In the case of the Cisco UCS B-200 M1, the total number of CPUs available is 8.

You must not have memory overcommitted on the ESXi host that is running UC realtime applications. You must allocate minimum 2GB of memory for the ESXi kernel. For example, if an ESXi server on B-200 M1 hardware has 36GB of memory, after you allocate 2GB for the ESXi kernel, you have 34GB available for the virtual machines. The total memory allocated for all the virtual machines on an ESXi server must not be greater than 34GB in this case.

VM co-residency with Unified Communications and third party applications were not tested on the same blade with Unified CVP products.

Creating Virtual Machines from OVA VM Templates

Open Virtualization Format (OVF) is an open standard for packaging and distributing virtual appliances. Files in this format have an extension of .ova. The naming convention for the template is PRODUCT_COMPONENT_USER COUNT_VERSION_VMVER.ova

Follow the instructions in the Downloading OVA Templates section below to download the OVA templates from cisco.com to a local datastore that vSphere Client can access.

Downloading OVA Templates

To download a single OVA file, click the Download File button next to that file. To download multiple OVA files, click the Add to Cart button next to each file that you want to download, then click on the Download Cart link. A Download Cart page appears.

Click the Proceed with Download button on this page. A Software License Agreement page appears.

Read the Software License Agreement, then click the Agree button

On the next page, click on either the Download Manager link (requires Java) or the Non Java Download Option link. A new browser window appears.

If you selected Download Manager, a Select Location dialog box appears. Specify the location where you want to save the file, and click Open to save the file to your local machine.

If you selected Non Java Download Option, click the Download link on the new browser window. Specify the location and save the file to your local machine.

Creating Virtual Machines by Deploying the OVA Templates

In the vSphere client, perform the following steps to deploy the Virtual machines.

Highlight the host or cluster to which you wish the VM to be deployed.

Select File > Deploy OVF Template.

Click the Deploy from File radio button and specify the name and location of the file you downloaded in the previous section or click the Deploy from URL radio button and specify the complete URL in the field, then click Next.

Verify the details of the template, and click Next.

Give the VM you are about to create a name, and choose an inventory location on your host, then click Next.

Choose the datastore on which you would like the VM to reside - be sure there is sufficient free space to accommodate the new VM, then click Next.

Choose a virtual network for the VM, then click Next.

Verify the deployment settings, then click Finish.

Notes

VM CPU affinity is not supported. You do not need to set CPU affinity for the VMs that are running Unified CVP applications on the VMware ESXi on UCS platform.

VM resource Reservation - VM resource reservation is not supported for the VMs that are running Unified CVP applications on the VMware ESXi on UCS platform. The VM computing resources should have a default reservation setting, which is no resource reservations.

You cannot change the computing resource configuration of your VM at any time.

You can never go below the minimum VM computing resource requirements as defined in the OVA templates.

It is required that hyperthreading be enabled by default when running CVP on ESXi. ESXi Server hyperthread is enabled by default and this setting should not be modified. Please ensure all VM's with CVP servers has hyperthreading enabled.

Remote Control of the Virtual Machines

For administrative tasks, you can use either Windows Remote Desktop or the VMware Infrastructure Client for remote control.

Installing VMware Tools

The VMware Tools must be installed on each of the VMs and all of the VMware Tools default settings should be used. Please refer to the VMware documentation for instructions on installing or upgrading VMware Tools on the VM with Windows operating system.

Installing Unified CVP Components on Virtual Machines

You can install the Unified CVP components after the configuration of the VMs. Installation of these Unified CVP components on a VM is the same as the installation of these components on physical hardware.

Refer to the Unified CVP documentation for the steps to install Unified CVP components. You can install the supported Virus Scan software, the Cisco Security Agent (CSA), or any other software in the same way as on physical hardware.

The creation of the virtual machine for the Unified CVP Reporting Server requires a large virtual disk size. You must follow the steps described below to configure the ESXi data store size to 438 GB for it to handle the Unified CVP Reporting Server data before you deploy the OVAs

Timekeeping Best Practices for Windows

ESXi hosts and domain controllers should synchronize the time from the same NTP source.

When Unified Unified CVP virtual machines join the domain, they synchronize the time with the domain controller automatically using w32time.

Be sure that Time synchronization between the virtual machine and the host operating system in the VMware Tools tool box GUI of the Windows Server 2003 guest operating system remains deselected; this checkbox is deselected by default.